Wednesday, June 22, 2011

J. Edgar [Hoover], My Week with Marilyn

Leonardo DiCaprio in the first poster of J. Edgar (2011) directed by Clint Eastwood

"In the 1930s, his easy access to FDR's White House made him a consummate Washington insider. He was a radio pundit and a regular panellist on Meet the Press in its early years on television. But after Roosevelt's death, Stone's refusal to abandon his Popular Front belief in the need for liberals and radicals to work together made him an increasingly isolated figure. During the postwar red scare, his unstinting attacks on Senator Joseph McCarthy and the FBI chief J Edgar Hoover brought the wrath of the Bureau down on his head. By 1952, he was practically deaf, out of work and saddled with a manuscript of The Hidden History of the Korean War which even the New Statesman was afraid to publish. The US state department refused to renew his passport and the Nation wouldn't give him his old job back. "I feel for the moment like a ghost", he wrote.

By the time he shut the Weekly down 18 years later, circulation had risen above 70,000 - helped in part by supporters such as Marilyn Monroe, who bought subscriptions for every member of Congress". Source: www.newstatesman.com

"After wowing critics last year in “Blue Valentine” Michelle Williams is set to once again do the awards circuit, taking on one of the most iconic actresses of all time in “My Week With Marilyn.”The project, directed by TV veteran Simon Curtis (”Cranford”), centers on Marilyn Monroe (Williams) and follows her friendship with young Englishman Colin Clark while in the country shooting “The Prince and the Showgirl” as well as her tempestuous relationship with director/co-star Laurence Olivier.Eddie Redmayne on the set of "My Week With Marilyn", shooting in central London.

President John F. Kennedy with Robert F. Kennedy and J. Edgar Hoover by Cecil Stoughton

"Bobby [Kennedy] had become even more alarmed on February 27, 1962, when he received a memo from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover: While investigating Johnny Roselli, agents had found many calls to Judith Campbell. A check of her telephone records disclosed several phone calls to Evelyn Lincoln, President Kennedy’s personal secretary in the White House, as well as to Sam Giancana. Bobby did not know then that Frank Sinatra was the link between Judy Campbell and the President, and Judy Campbell and Sam Giancana, but he did have enough information about Sinatra’s connections to organized crime to dissuade his brother from accepting Frank’s hospitality as planned in March 1962. Bobby immediately stepped up surveillance on Giancana as well as on Judith Campbell, and dispatched J. Edgar Hoover to give the FBI reports to the President while he called Peter Lawford to cancel the President’s weekend stay at Sinatra’s house".-"His Way: The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra" by Kitty Kelley (2010)